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Sunday, November 1, 2009

After good luck with a relatively straight forward cider last year it seemed like it was time for me to give a cider with some funk a shot (I am the Mad Fermentationist, right?). Some traditional apple ciders do have a bit of a wild yeast character because they were made from unpasteurized apples (the peel of most fruit are covered in sugar loving microbes), and if it doesn't work out I'm sure I could put 5 gallons of apple cider vinegar to good use...

As always hard cider is one of the easiest things to ferment at home. Just dump the cider into a carboy, add some pectic enzyme (I've used 1/2 tsp per gallon in the past, but this time backed it down to 1/4 tsp to see if I could still get a crystal clear finished cider), and pitch the yeast about an hour or two later.

In this case though instead of a clean cider/ale/wine strain, I used some of the slurry from the Wine Barrel Flanders Red (it started out life as Wyeast Roeselare Blend and Lost Abbey Red Poppy dregs ~18 months ago, but I have no idea exactly what is in there now). When fermentation didn't appear to have started after 48 hours I decided to pitch some hefeweizen yeast left over from my Weizenbock. Hefeweizen yeast may seem like a strange choice, but it is a somewhat popular choice these days. The idea is that the fruit esters will boost the aroma of the cider, and you won't get much clove spice because apples lack the precursor needed for the yeast to produce it.

My concern with the general concept of a sour cider is that the sourness will seem too aggressive since cider ends up so dry. That said, because cider is so easily fermented there may not be that much residual sugar for the bugs to eat. Sour beers are generally brewed to have lots of complex sugars that the primary yeast strain can't ferment, but cider can easily get down close to 1.000 even with a regular ale yeast. We'll see how it turns out, if it ends up too sour I may blend it with a malty ale for further aging (New Glarus Apple Ale is the only similar beer I am aware of).

I probably won't really know the results of this one until next fall, but I'd love to know if anyone out there has tried something similar.

Question. I have a batch of hard cider that has been in primary for three weeks now. It is made from unpasteurized preservative free cider. I forgot to add pectic enzyme before I pitched the yeast. I am going to be racking to secondary soon and I was wondering if there would be any problems with adding the pectic enzyme during the racking?

There is no issue adding pectic enzyme after fermentation, but it may not be as effective (I’ve never actually tried, but that is what the bottle says). That said, since the cider was not heated for pasteurization the pectins may not be a big issue for you anyway.

I am fermenting some (just a gallon) cider right now with the slurry from Wyeasts old ale blend. It formed a pellicle almost right away, but that broke up as the fermentation got active. Its just starting to clear now after 1 month+ in primary. The only thing I added to the initial apple juice was one gala apple and three crabapples which I ground up in a food processor, which I hop will give the brett something to chew on, that's the idea anyway. It's just an experiment.

The brett and bacteria will do some work during primary fermentation. Brett will also screw around with the esters quite a bit even without changing the gravity much. Also, remember that 1.000 does not mean that there are no residual sugars, just that the relatively lighter alcohol and heavier sugars are canceling out.

I recently made a batch of what folks are referring to as "Graff", ( 1 gallon of lightly hopped pale malt wort + 4 gallons of cider),. I decided to not boil the cider as I used completely unpasteurized cider from a local apple farm and wanted to see what the results would be like if I let the wild beasts work on the batch. It turned out pretty well and definitely had a "gamey" flavor about it. To my mind, it tasted very, very similar to a Geuze in almost every way. Funny thing is, as it has sat in the bottles, it has become very acidic. Might have to get out my pH meter and see if I'm drinking vinegar or not.

Anywhooo, the reason I mention all this is that this time around I made the same batch and pitched a vial of WL german ale yeast as well as letting the wild bunch work on it. I've been busy as of late and haven't gotten around to bottling it. It has been racked to a secondary because the primary was just seemingly endlessly fermenting and I was afraid it was going to get too dry. It was 1.00 when I racked, yikes. Point is, I just checked it today and there is definitely a pellicle forming on it. So I am kind of torn, should i try to rack it out from under the pellicle or should I just let 'er go and do her thing and see what I wind up with? WWTMFD? ( what would the mad fermentationist do?),.

I'm planning to do a sour cider next week but I'm torn as to whether I want to do all brett or treat it like a Berliner Weisse.

The trick with the brett is that these will be fresh apples and the starter will have to be going strong to beat out the wild yeasts on the apples. (Not that the combo of brett and wilder brett isn’t compelling. It might be the best of both worlds.)

The Berliner would be more controlled because I would pitch US-05, then crash it just under 1.010, rack off that yeast, and then pitch delbrueckii.

Thoughts on which way to go? I’m leaning towards the all-brett. More upside AND, of course, downside.

I'm new to cidermaking but thought I would jump on this opportunity. I'm going to pick up 6 gallons of fresh pressed cider made specifically for hard cider at Distillery Lane cider works. www.ciderapples.com How do I "pasteurize" this cider? I don't want to boil because I want a clear cider. Any help would be greatly appreciated/

I posted above about my cider that had formed a pellicle. The pellicle never formed fully, then dissipated fully, became more of a bubbly looking clear film. I racked about 24oz out a couple of days ago to see how things were moving along, and to make sure I was just fermenting vinegar. Smell was a little funky and musty but no vinegar odor. Good sign. Poured into an 8oz wine glass, the liquid was a beautiful deep golden yellow, no haze or cloudiness what so ever. THe taste was fantastic. I drank all three glasses in about 2 hours. To my surprise it was too dry at all. The apple flavor was so delicate and yet pronounced at the same time, slight bit of sweetness, then the slightly sour/funkiness hits, then the citrusy hoppiness gets you on the finish, but not in an overpoweringly bitter way. I usually prefer carb'ed ciders, but this was fantastic still.

The difficult part for me now is, do I bottle it now or wait another couple months and hope it improves even further?

James, I made a Graff, but opted to hop it as per the recipe on HBTnetwork. However, I used 4 gallons of local, unpasteurized cider thrown straight into the mix. I did also pitch a vial of WL's German Ale yeast into the mix just for fun. I aged it for nearly seven month in the secondary. It's is carbed and I am drinking one as I type this. It pours a bit darker than yours, but not much, slightly more amber. Nice head, that retains at about a 1/4" throughout. Very nice lacing too, all the way down the glass! Not much in the aroma department though. The mouth feel is zingy and pleasant. The taste is interesting, ha ha. It's definitely sour, tart, and "wild" tasting. None of those are bad things in any way imho. There is definitely an extreme essence of apple, with little to no sweetness, very dry. I love it personally. I could drink them all night, which is not a good idea as the last time I did I wound up with a rather wicked hangover. But yeah, sour graff, thumbs up.

I decided to have a go on cider from my parents apples. I picked about 120kg of two different varietes (dunno names in english) and had them pressed by a local juice shop. I got about 50l of juice, of which 20l was used to make hard cider.

Used pectine and cambden, a day later pitched wyeast cider yeast. OG was 1045, bit low, but i decided not to add any sugar. First experiment with pure stuff.

Two weeks later g 1000, racked to secondary. Another two weeks and bottled with sugar for carbing. Forgot to take gravity during bottling, stupid me but it was third bottling this weekend so I was already quite tired :) I didnt see any activity in the airlock for quite some time so I'm quite confident the fermentation was done.

Now, after secondary, there was a thin layer of slimy thing floating at the top. Looked translucent, bit like kombucha. Definitely some sort of contamination, any idea what that could be? Decided to bottle anyway, tasted very dry and sour, so I guess some malolactic fermentation going on. I'm cool with that, I like sour ales and have experimented with kombucha. I'll solve the dryness by blending it at drinking time. The cider itself was already crystal clear, the pectine had definitely done its job.

How long should I wait before first tasting? how does the maturation affect the taste? And was I foolish not to go for the pasteurized stuff?

Hard to say exactly what sort of microbe got in there. If it looked like kombucha it could be acetobacter, was the cider open to the air at all?

Since the cider fermented dry and in the bottle where it won't be exposed to oxygen. I wouldn't worry too much, and it shouldn't be a big deal that you didn't pasteurize.

I'd open a bottle after 2-3 weeks just to see how it is going. Often cider doesn't get great until about a year after brewing, the sour cider I did is still in the fermenter. So try not to drink too much of it until next fall.

The sealing was not probably good enough; I was missing one seal because I didn't remember to take it with me (I "brewed" the cider at my parents). The fermentation worked OK during primary without it (probably because enough CO2 was generated to keep the air out), so I was hoping that it would be ok in the secondary also. Oh well. Learn by doing. It also got some air during racking.

So, I guess bottling was the right way to go, to prevent acidity go overboard. I don't want too much funk since I try to make it also to my parents liking :) I'll let you know around Christmas how it starts to turn out.

Adding acid blend if fine if you don't want the funk to go with the tartness. I think of acid blend more as a way to make up for using sweet cider apples rather than the traditional hard cider apples that had more sugar/acid/tannins.

It may have, but I doubt that is the reason it is less sour than expected because regular hard cider made with "drinking" cider isn't that acidic (which means it is low in malic acid). I really think it is the lack of more complex sugars, next time I'll add ~16 oz of maltodextrin.

I recently procured some flash pasteurized cider from MI, pitched wyeast cider yeast for primary, then racked to secondary on fresh tart MI cherries (lb per gallon, 5 gals) + Brett and a starter of dregs from a few bottles of Isastegi cider (If you haven't had Isastegi, I highly recommend it!). Its been about 2 months since I racked it and haven't tasted it yet..I'll probably wait another month or so, but I'll let you know how it goes!

Just bottled half of the above with some lactose and blended the other half with 2 fresh gallons of organic MI cider + new cider yeast + fresh brett c + pectic. I have 5 lbs cherries left that I'm going to use to feed the brett over the winter....really psyched to see what blending with the fresh cider is going to do to this one. The half I bottled yesterday was crisp with a light sourness and a fantastic lambic/gueze like aroma. Also, it's pink from the cherries, which is a nice touch. Just thought I'd drop an update.

I've never gotten really clear ciders without pectic enzyme, they always came out muddy (take a look at my 2006 batch). Are you using unpasteurized cider? It seems like the pasteurized ones have a bigger problem with pectin because they are heated.

I’d pour ~1/4 cup of cider (maybe water it down to ~1.030 or so and with a pinch of yeast nutrient) into the bottle with the dregs. Let it get going, then step it up into a larger starter.

I press my apples, so no pasturizing. Just some time in the carboy, and maybe one racking produces perfectly clear cider. Sometimes I get carried away and put too much lees in the bottle but even that drops out if poured carefully.

I have a 6 gallon batch of Apfelwine (just unpasteurized cider + some dextrine fermented with champagne yeast) fermenting in primary right now. I'm planning to split off about 2 gallons to sour in a small carboy by adding some Wyeast lactobacillus delbrueckii with lactose for it to chew on. I saw your post above that you would add maltodextrin if you were going to do this again. Do you have a recommendation on lactose vs. maltodextrin if I'm trying to specifically feed lactobacillus?

I think the drive for clarity is not only based on the commercial examples (which tend to be crystal clear) but also the fact that being so pale cider can look really muddy (take a look at the first cider I brewed). Most beers are darker which hides the haze and look good regardless of their clarity.

Where I am (south west of England), even a lot of commercial cider producers actually use 100% spontaneous fermentation!We are very lucky to have a lot of great cider producers and a lot of old varieties of apples.

The most important element in cider making (as in winemaking) is the variety of apples used and the proportions of the blend. If you have great apples and a little extra flavour from spontaneous fermentation and aging in old oak, you're gonna have great cider on a par with the ciders of Brittany and Normandy and the south west.

If you only have acces to eating apples/drinking juice, then picking a proportion of wild / crab apples (about a third of volume in juice) will help to add some bittersweet edge to your cider and also provide the spontaneous fermentation.

Also allowing your apples to sit for a few hours, after milling but before pressing, will allow the natural tannins to oxidise and give a fuller body. You need to age it at least 6 months before drinking.

Cider making is only easy if the juice is already pressed for you! Otherwise its a lot more work than beer!

P.S. I love your beer posts! Currently 1 year into fermenting 4 x 5gallons of spontaneous lambic off the back of your info. Keep up good work.